Armed Forces chiefs have angrily denied SNP claims they are dispatching
soldiers into primary schools and nurseries to “soften up” children for
recruitment.

Christine Grahame, a senior MSP, said she has obtained documents showing that the British military is lying over its assurances it does not enter Scottish schools without first being invited by a teacher.

Instead she suggested a desperate Ministry of Defence (MoD) is deliberately targeting young children in an attempt to boost its “flagging recruitment targets”.

But the accusations were met with outrage by one of Scotland’s most senior Army officers, who said it receives numerous requests from schools for soldiers to attend classes but this is never used to recruit.

Miss Grahame has previously stirred controversy by stating she does not consider the Armed Forces a good career and recruiters are targeting pupils in poor areas of Scotland who want to escape the effects of the recession.

Alex Salmond has distanced himself from the comments, but she has been allowed to persist and has tabled Freedom of Information requests to Scotland’s 32 councils.

She claimed the documents she was sent show that some of the schools visits are at the behest of the Army, with chiefs confirming the strategy is part of a “drip, drip, drip approach to securing more recruits”.

“The MoD said that access is only ever allowed following invitation, but as I have demonstrated there is simply no paper trail and no evidence to support that claim as I had suspected,” she said.

“These latest documents show that not only is the recruitment strategy aimed at children in primary schools, but that representatives of the armed forces are now routinely going into nursery schools too.

“Schools are for educating our young, and not a ‘recruitment opportunity’ for a Ministry of Defence increasingly desperate to meet its flagging recruitment targets.”

Extracts from the documents, provided by Miss Grahame, appeared to show the Army invited Scottish Borders Council to send pupils to attend a work experience programme.

Another from East Renfrewshire Council showed a visit was made to Madras Nursery in Neilston, although it involved a submariner who was a husband of a member of staff.

“Parents were invited to come to the nursery to talk to children about their jobs. Invitation was by word of mouth,” it states.

Western Isles Council confirmed none of their schools had issued invites but one had scheduled a course with the RAF. Miss Grahame argued that if no invite was issued, one must presume the Armed Forces approached the school.

An email from another secondary school to the RAF, also released by the MSP, asked whether officers would be available to provide a series of presentations on interview techniques.

The request was made in response to a leaflet detailing the support the RAF can offer schools. But Brigadier George Lowder, Commander 51 (Scottish) Brigade said: “We simply do not recruit in schools, primary or secondary.

“The Army is part of Scottish society and an important public service, and therefore supports school activities when invited and welcomed to do so by head teachers and their staff.

“The Army gets numerous informal and official requests from schools every year and gets no special treatment or access, but neither should it be excluded or discriminated against.”

He said the school visits support the curriculum and similar contributions are made by police, fire, ambulance service and people from other walks of life.

“It is a fine and honourable thing to be a Scottish soldier and we have a duty to explain to Scottish children who we are and what we do to protect our nation, and pass on valuable skills such as leadership, teamwork and citizenship,” he concluded.

Brig Lowder said many members of the Armed Forces, including him, are parents and help their schools, adding: “This is not recruiting – far from it.”

He promised to examine any specific complaints or evidence produced by MSPs. An MoD spokesman said many requests from schools are informal or verbal.

The Armed Forces then put the details in writing, hence Miss Grahame’s assumptions the visits are made at their behest.

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: “The First Minister has previously said that he does not support Miss Grahame’s comments on such matters, but obviously defends the right of backbenchers to make public their personal views."